


Coming Home To A Foreign Place

by Wagnetic



Category: The Eagle | The Eagle of the Ninth (2011)
Genre: Ficlet, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-08-27
Packaged: 2018-02-15 01:56:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2211375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wagnetic/pseuds/Wagnetic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everything is different now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Home To A Foreign Place

**Author's Note:**

> Part book!verse, part movie!verse.

Marcus had expected to feel a sense of familiarity upon his return to Calleva, but it was as though the whole world had changed since his departure. The roads and buildings he’d once known so well seemed strange to him now—as strange, he imagined, as he must seem to the people who dwelt within the city. As strange as those people now appeared to him.

Nothing could remain unchanged between himself and any other person, it seemed. His uncle looked at him with no less affection, and with the same respect, but also with a greater sense of distance. His uncle’s slaves were less familiar with him than they had been during his convalescence, though Sassticca returned to her fussing when she saw how much weight he had lost over the course of the journey. Even little Cottia, exuberant and sharp as ever, had grown from a girl to a young woman. At least Cub remained unchanged, Marcus thought wryly.

And then there was Esca, who was a constant puzzle. Had he been a freedman, Esca would still have been bound to Marcus, but they would have been client and patron rather than master and slave. Esca was a citizen now, however, and so Marcus had no title for the bond between them. Friends, he supposed, though the word failed to express the way in which they were tied together.

There was something like duty between them still. It was one Marcus took on willingly, but he wondered if Esca still felt indebted in some way. Esca acted much as he had before they'd ventured north. He watched Marcus carefully, tending his leg when it ached and cramped, for Marcus had damaged it again past the wall. He offered his shoulder for support and chided Marcus when his pride prevented him from seeking Esca’s assistance. And though Marcus had offered him a room of his own, or at least a bed, Esca still slept on the pallet in Marcus’s room. 

The way Esca looked at him was different, he thought, though perhaps the longing he thought he saw staring into him was only the reflection of his own face in Esca’s eyes. Marcus could no longer deny that longing as he listened to Esca’s easy breathing in the night, or when he saw Esca’s smile or heard his laugh.

“Why do you still tend to me?” Marcus asked on one particularly bitter night when the cold had made his muscles seize. “You must know that it is no longer your duty.” Though Marcus had tried not to wake Esca with any noises of discomfort, Esca was as attuned to him as ever, and had not only woken, but had also insisted that he see to Marcus’s leg. “You are a free man, a citizen of Rome,” Marcus continued.

Esca continued his ministrations and said only, “I am, yes.” His tone was flat and even, and Marcus knew him well enough to recognize it for the warning it was. Still, he couldn’t let the matter go.

“Why do you stay? There is nothing to keep you in Calleva any longer. You could go anywhere.” 

Esca dug his fingers in hard enough to make Marcus wince. It would sooth the muscles, he knew, but hurt all the same. “And where would I go, do you think? I have no kin to seek out and no home to return to. I have nothing—”

“You know I would give you anything you required for your journey.”

Esca’s hands stilled. “Are you so eager for me to be gone, then?”

“No. It isn’t that at all.” Marcus grasped Esca’s shoulder as he spoke, as though it would anchor Esca to him. “I only want to see you happy. I know you aren’t fully satisfied being here, and you deserve more than that.”

Esca’s eyes were trained on him sharply now. “What is it that you think I deserve?”

“Everything.” A foolish answer, but also the truth. “Anything you desire.”

“Then let me remain here. I have no wish to be elsewhere.”

"There's nothing else you want?" Marcus asked.  "I would find it for you, if it would make you happy."

"I will tell you soon," Esca said. "We need to find our place first. It's not something I would ask of you before then, for both our sakes, but when the time comes, I will tell you what I want, and I think you will give it to me. I think you already have it."

Esca covered the hand still on his shoulder, and Marcus realized that he hadn't let Esca go. He wanted to say that there was no need to wait, that if he had understood Esca's words correctly, they could have what they wanted now, but Marcus would give Esca anything, and that included time. The world would settle around them in time, and then they would reshape their lives again.


End file.
